We have a requirement of showing text in multi columns - the way its printed in newspapers or magazines. Any suggestions how can I achieve it in Tridion. Is there any such feature in RTF or other field. If yes, is it easy for non-technical content authors to do it.
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2Already some good answers below, additionally make sure that everyone (business analyst, editor, developer) is clear on behaviour when your site when the screen-size does not support multiple columns (for example mobile)– Will PriceCommented Jun 16, 2014 at 8:21
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1If authors should control where the columns break, consider repeated sets of fields to control this. See my answer on how to see past columns and also handle tabs and other layouts with the same schema approach.– Alvin ReyesCommented Jun 17, 2014 at 4:19
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4 Answers
RTF field or any other field does not support it, also text in multi-column is a design requirement, don't try to achieve it through Schemas.
In Tridion Design and Content is separate.
you have to write your Page template(PT) and Component template(CT) for it. Page template gives structure of the page, as you said multicolumn,
CT will give design to each of your news item.
Few links for further reading:
answered Jun 12, 2014 at 19:13
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The design and content are separate, but design can rely on content structure. :-) Commented Jun 17, 2014 at 3:57
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We have a good collection of answers, I think this is fine, Raj. I mostly second Will's point in terms of mobile and I've given my answer as well. ;-) Commented Jun 17, 2014 at 16:11
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yes i saw and +1 answer, its always nice to see your detailed answers, i wanted to convey same message which you did with details. Commented Jun 17, 2014 at 16:46
Embeddable Schema
A "Paragraph" embedded schema can create sets of author-friendly fields for templates by including:
- Subheading (
Text) - Body (Repeatable
Rich Text Formatarea )
*"Section" or "Body" might be more appropriate since columns could have multiple <p> tags.
Content Structure-Driven Layout
Template this author-controlled content structure by using quantity and order.
- Number of Paragraphs = number of columns
- Order matches and you have "hooks" for first paragraph, even/odd, etc
- Repeated Body fields give even more control (sections within a column)
Template
You can then template any set of repeated design elements with templates for:
- Columns
- Tabs
- Accordion
- Swipe-able
A One or Two Columns:
- May mean multiple Component Template per layout
- But work well Experience Manager as Pankaj describes (even better with custom icons)
- Might be easier by re-using Template Building Blocks
Instead consider a One or Many approach (for an Article schema):
- Article (show everything in a single column)
- Article - Columns (show a "Paragraph" in a column, wrapping at certain number if needed)
As Will hints at, your front-end design or page logic might even control how "Columns" behaves with responsive design (different browser sizes, in different sections of a page, etc.). I wrote a post detailing the approach with some code. But this isn't a Tridion "thing" per se. These highlight structure's role in content modeling:
- Future-Ready Content and Responsive-Ready Content (Sara Wachter-Boettcher)
- Content Strategy and Responsive Design (Sean Tubridy)
- Structured Content First (Stephen Hay)
answered Jun 17, 2014 at 4:16
The best bet that I can think on it is that you may have multiple component templates written for each expected design (multiple column display of content), For example: if you want to show your content in single column paragraph, two column paragraph and three column paragraph, then design three CT for each one of them. This will allow the Non-Technical business users to changes and review these layouts for a piece of text from the Experience Manager Layout Tab.
answered Jun 16, 2014 at 8:17
Below link may help you, as I think question is more related to presenting content on front end. Note : This may not work with IE8 and IE9. Show content in multicolumn
